BRATISLAVA, November 10, 2019
Dennis Novak is the champion of the €114,800 Peugeot Slovak Open held at the National Tennis Centre in Bratislava. The 26-year-old Austrian cruised past No. 5 seed Damir Dzumhur of Bosnia and Herzegovina 6-1, 6-1 in Sunday’s singles final.
Novak enjoyed an impressive week at the 20th edition of the ATP Challenger 110 indoor hard-court event by beating compatriot Sebastian Ofner, Alexei Popyrin of Australia, home favourite Norbert Gombos, No. 3 seeded Italian Stefano Travaglia and the tournament’s No. 9 Egor Gerasimov of Belarus en-route to the championship match.
Novak continued his good run of form in the final. The World No. 126 fired 11 aces and won 86 per cent of his first-service points to secure victory in only 48 minutes.
Dennis Novak the champion of Slovak Open with a massive luck today but Dzumhur was totally outplaying pic.twitter.com/8w6Klwggh9
— Tomasz Tomecky (@tomecky12) November 10, 2019
“I thank my team led by Julian Knowle, who was here with me in Bratislava,” Novak said. “Last year I reached the semifinals, this year I won. I will probably come back next year. It’s close to my home and I really like it here.”
By lifting his second ATP Challenger trophy, following his maiden triumph in Taipei City, Novak took away from Slovakia €15,270 as well as 110 ATP Ranking points.
On Saturday, Frederik Nielsen from Denmark and Germany’s Tim Pütz captured the doubles title. The No. 2 seeds fought past the tournament’s No. 3 pairing of Roman Jebavy from the Czech Republic and Slovakian Igor Zelenay 4-6, 7-6(4), 11-9 to win their second team crown of the season after Munich in May. The encounter lasted one hour and 32 minutes.
